Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease

Definition

Description

Before 1995, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease was not well known outside the medical profession. Even within it, many practitioners did not know much about it. Most doctors had never seen a case. With the recognition of a so-called "new variant" form of CJD and the strong possibility that those with it became infected simply by eating contaminated beef, CJD has become one of the most talked-about diseases in the world. Additionally, the radical theory that the infectious agent is a normal protein that has been changed in its form also has sparked much interest.

First described in the early twentieth century independently by Creutzfeldt and Jakob, CJD is a neurodegenerative disease causing a rapidly progressing dementia ending in death, usually within eight months of symptom onset. It also is a very rare disease, affecting only about one in every million people throughout the world. In the United States, CJD is thought to affect about 250 people each year. CJD affects adults primarily between ages 50 and 75.

Spongiform encephalopathies

The most obvious pathologic feature of CJD is the formation of numerous fluid-filled spaces in the brain (vacuoles) resulting in a sponge-like appearance. CJD is one of several human "spongiform encephalopathies," diseases that produce this characteristic change in brain tissue. Others are kuru; Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker disease, a genetic disorder predominantly characterized by cerebellar ataxia (a kind of movement disorder); and fatal familial insomnia, with symptoms of progressive sleeplessness, weakness, and dysfunction of the nervous system that affects voluntary and involuntary movements and functions.

Kuru was prevalent among the Fore people in Papua, New Guinea, and spread from infected individuals after their deaths through the practice of ritual cannibalism, in which the relatives of the dead person honored him by consuming his organs, including the brain. Discovery of the infectious nature of kuru won the Nobel Prize for Carleton Gadjusek in 1976. The incubation period for kuru was between four to 30 years or more. While kuru has virtually disappeared since these cannibalistic practices stopped, several new cases continue to arise each year.

Cases of CJD have been grouped into three types: familial, iatrogenic, and sporadic.

Familial CJD, representing 5-15% of cases, is inherited in an autosomal dominant manner, meaning that either parent may pass along the disease to a child, who then may develop CJD later in life.

Iatrogenic CJD occurs when a person is infected during a medical procedure, such as organ donation, blood transfusion, or brain surgery. The rise in organ donation has increased this route of transmission; grafts of infected corneas and dura mater (the tissue covering the brain) have been shown to transmit CJD. Another source is hormones concentrated from the pituitary glands of cadavers, some of whom carried CJD, for use in people with growth hormone deficiencies. Iatrogenic infection from exposure to nerve-containing tissue represents a small fraction of all cases. The incubation period after exposure to the infectious agent is very long and is estimated to be from less than 10 to more than 30 years. It remains unlikely, but not impossible, that blood from patients with CJD is infectious to others by transfusion.

Sporadic CJD represents at least 85% of all cases. Sporadic cases have no identifiable source of infection. Death usually follows first symptoms within eight months.

Animal forms and "mad cow disease"

Six forms of spongiform encephalopathies are known to occur in other mammals: scrapie in sheep, recognized for more than 200 years; chronic wasting disease in elk and mule deer in Wyoming and Colorado; transmissible mink encephalopathy; exotic ungulate encephalopathy in some types of zoo animals; feline spongiform encephalopathy in domestic cats; and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in cows.

BSE was first recognized in Britain in 1986. Besides the spongiform changes in the brain, BSE causes dementia-like behavioral changes—hence the name "mad cow disease." BSE was thought to be an altered form of scrapie, transmitted to cows when they were fed sheep offal (slaughterhouse waste) as part of their feed, but researchers believe it is a primary cattle disease spread by contaminated feed.

The use of slaughterhouse offal in animal feed has been common in many countries and has been practiced for at least 50 years. The trigger for the BSE epidemic in Great Britain seems to have come in the early 1980s, when the use of organic solvents for preparation of offal was altered there. It is possible that these solvents had been destroying the agent called a prion, thereby preventing infection, and that the change in preparation procedure opened the way for the agent to "jump species" and cause BSE in cows that consumed scrapie-infected meal. The slaughter of infected (but not yet visibly sick) cows at the end of their useful farm lives, and the use of their carcasses for feed, spread the infection rapidly and widely. For at least a year after BSE was first recognized in British herds, infected bovine remains continued to be incorporated into feed, spreading the disease still further. Although milk from infected cows never has been shown to pass the infectious agent, passage from infected mother to calf may have occurred through unknown means. Researchers also have tried to confirm how to stop infection of the human food chain once the disease spread among cows. In 2003, a study reported that it spread through nervous system tissue in processed meat and that proper temperature and pressure controls could help ensure safety of commercial beef.

Beginning in 1988, the British government took steps to stop the spread of BSE, banning the use of bovine offal in feed and other products and ordering the slaughter of infected cows. By then, the slow-acting agent had become epidemic in British herds. In 1992, it was diagnosed in more than 25,000 animals (1% of the British herd). By mid-1997, the cumulative number of BSE cases in the United Kingdom had risen to more than 170,000. The feeding ban stemmed the tide of the epidemic; however, the number of new cases each week fell from a peak of 1,000 in 1993 to less than 300 two years later.

The export of British feed and beef to member countries was banned by the European Union, but cases of BSE had developed in Europe by then as well; however, by mid-1997, only about 1,000 cases had been identified. In 1989, the United States banned import of British beef and began monitoring United States herds in 1990. In December 2003, the first and only case (as of late March 2004) of BSE was discovered in the United States. This prompted recommendations of new safeguards to prevent further spread. Among these were regulations banning animal blood in cattle feed.

Variant cjd: the human equivalent of mad cow disease

From the beginning of the BSE epidemic, scientists and others in Britain feared that BSE might jump species again to infect humans who had consumed infected beef. This, however, had never occurred in scrapie from sheep, a disease known for hundreds of years. In 1996, the first report of this possibility occurred and the fear seemed to be realized with the first cases of a new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, termed nvCJD, now just vCJD. Its victims are much younger than the 60-65 year old average for CJD, and the time from symptom onset to death has averaged 12 months or more instead of eight. The disease appears to cause more psychiatric symptoms early on. EEG abnormalities characteristic of CJD are not typically seen in vCJD.

By early 2004, CJD had claimed 143 victims in Great Britain and 10 in other countries. It is of major concern that the number of cases per year seems to be increasing by a factor of 1.35 each year. The only known case in the United States to date had been acquired while the person had been in Great Britain.

Evidence is growing stronger that vCJD is in fact caused by BSE:

almost all of the cases so far have occurred in Great Britain, the location of the BSE epidemic

BSE injected into monkeys produces a disease very similar to vCJD

BSE and vCJD produce the same brain lesions after the same incubation period when injected into laboratory mice

brain proteins isolated from vCJD victims, but not from the other forms of CJD, share similar molecular characteristics with brain proteins of animals that died from BSE

Researchers now treat the BSE-vCJD connection as solidly established.

Assuming that BSE is the source, the question that has loomed from the beginning has been how many people will eventually be affected. Epidemiological models once placed estimates at tens of thousands, but in 2003, scientists predicted a quicker end to the epidemic and have substantially lowered the numbers expected to contract the disease. The exact incubation period of vCJD in humans is about 10 to 20 years or longer, so it is more difficult to predict the number of cases. Researchers know that some people are more susceptible to vCJD, including young people age 10 to 20 years old.

Causes and symptoms

Causes

It is clear that Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is caused by an infectious agent, but it is not yet clear what type of agent that is. Originally assumed to be a virus, evidence is accumulating that, instead, CJD is caused by a protein called a prion (PREE-on, for "proteinaceous infectious particle") transmitted from victim to victim. The other spongiform encephalopathies also are hypothesized to be due to prion infection.

If this hypothesis is proven true, it would represent one of the most radical new ideas in biology since the discovery of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). All infectious diseases, in fact all life, use nucleic acids—DNA or ribonucleic acid (RNA)—to code the instructions needed for reproduction. Inactivation of the nucleic acids destroys the capacity to reproduce. However, when these same measures are applied to infected tissue from spongiform encephalopathy victims, infectivity is not destroyed. Furthermore, purification of infected tissue to concentrate the infectious fraction yields protein, not nucleic acid. While it remains possible that some highly stable nucleic acid remains hidden within the purified protein, this is seemingly less and less likely as further experiments are done. The "prion hypothesis," as it is called, is now widely accepted, at least provisionally, by most researchers in the field. The most vocal proponent of the hypothesis, Stanley Prusiner, was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1997 for his work in the prion diseases.

A prion is an altered form of a normal brain protein. The normal protein has a helical shape along part of its length. In the prion form, a sheet structure replaces the helix. According to the hypothesis, when the normal form interacts with the prion form, some of its helical part is converted to a sheet, thus creating a new prion capable of transforming other normal forms. In this way, the disease process resembles crystallization more than typical viral infection, in which the virus commands the host's cellular machinery to reproduce more of the virus. Build-up of the sheet form causes accumulation of abnormal protein clumps and degeneration of brain cells, which is thought to cause the disease.

The brain protein affected by the prion, called PrP, is part of the membrane of brain cells, but its exact function is unknown. Exposure to the infectious agent is, of course, still required for disease development. Prion diseases are not contagious in the usual sense, and transmission from an infected person to another person requires direct inoculation of infectious material.

Familial CJD, on the other hand, does not require exposure, but develops through the inheritance of other, more disruptive mutations in the gene for the normal PrP protein. The other two inherited human prion diseases, Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker disease and fatal familial insomnia, involve different mutations in the same gene.

The large majority of CJD cases are sporadic, meaning they have no known route of infection or genetic link. Causes of sporadic CJD are likely to be diverse and may include spontaneous genetic mutation, spontaneous protein changes, or unrecognized exposure to infectious agents. It is highly likely that future research will identify more risk factors associated with sporadic CJD.

Symptoms

About one in four people with CJD begin their illness with weakness, changes in sleep patterns, weight loss, or loss of appetite or sexual drive. A person with CJD may first complain of visual disturbances, including double vision, blurry vision, or partial loss of vision. Some visual symptoms are secondary to cortical blindness related to death of nerve cells in the occipital lobe of the brain responsible for vision. This form of visual loss is unusual in that patients may be unaware that they are unable to see. These symptoms may appear weeks to months before the onset of dementia.

The most characteristic symptom of CJD is rapidly progressing dementia, or loss of mental function. Dementia is marked by:

memory losses

impaired abstraction and planning

language and comprehension disturbances

poor judgment

disorientation

decreased attention and increased restlessness

personality changes and psychosis

hallucinations

Muscle spasms and jerking movements, called myoclonus, are also a prominent symptom of CJD. Balance and coordination disturbance (ataxia), is common in CJD, and is more pronounced in nvCJD. Stiffness, difficulty moving, and other features representing Parkinson's disease are seen and can progress to akinetic mutism, which is a state of being unable to speak or move.

Diagnosis

CJD is diagnosed by a clinical neurological exam and electroencephalography (EEG), which shows characteristic spikes called triphasic sharp waves. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or computed tomography scans (CT) should be done to exclude other forms of dementia, and in CJD typically shows atrophy or loss of brain tissue. Lumbar puncture, or spinal tap, may be done to rule out other causes of dementia (as cell count, chemical analysis, and other routine tests are normal in CJD) and to identify elevated levels of marker proteins known as 14-3-3. Another marker, neuron-specific enolase, may also be increased in CJD. CJD is conclusively diagnosed after death by brain autopsy. Scientists are investigating whether testing lymphatic tissue such as the tonsil may be an early tool in vCJD diagnosis. Additionally, recent studies have suggested that other blood tests may be useful as well.

Treatment

There is no cure for CJD, and no treatment that slows the progression of the disease. Drug therapy and nursing care are aimed at minimizing psychiatric symptoms and increasing patient comfort. However, the rapid progression of CJD frustrates most attempts at treatment, since decreasing cognitive function and more prominent behavioral symptoms develop so quickly. Despite the generally grim prognosis, a few CJD patients progress more slowly and live longer than the average; for these patients, treatment will be more satisfactory. Scientists are investigating whether some medicines that can "break" the abnormal protein form may be useful and whether a vaccine could help.

Prognosis

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease has proven invariably fatal, with death following symptom onset by an average of eight months. About 5% of patients live longer than two years. Death from vCJD has averaged approximately 12 months after onset. However, in 2003, clinicians reported improvement in a patient with vCJD who received a new experimental drug called Pentosan.

Prevention

There is no known way to prevent sporadic CJD, by far the most common type. Not everyone who inherits the gene mutation for familial CJD will develop the disease, but at present, there is no known way to predict who will and who will not succumb. The incidence of iatrogenic CJD has fallen with recognition of its sources, the development of better screening techniques for infected tissue, and the use of sterilization techniques for surgical instruments that inactivate prion proteins. Fortunately, scientists are making progress. In 2003, researchers announced that they had uncovered the basis for diagnosing, treating and possibly preventing prion diseases such as vCJD. Their research possibly could lead to a vaccine and immunotherapy drugs.

Nucleic acids — The cellular molecules DNA and RNA that act as coded instructions for the production of proteins and are copied for transmission of inherited traits.

Strategies for prevention of vCJD are a controversial matter, as they involve a significant sector of the agricultural industry and a central feature of the diet in many countries. The infectious potential of contaminated meat is unknown, because the ability to detect prions within meat is limited. Surveillance of North American herds strongly suggests there is no BSE here, and strict regulations on imports of European livestock make future outbreaks highly unlikely. Therefore, avoidance of all meat originating in North America, simply on grounds of BSE risk, is a personal choice unsupported by current data.

Resources

Periodicals

Brown, Paul, et al. "Ultra-high Pressure Inactivation of Prion Infectivity in Processed Meat: A Practical Method to Prevent Human Infection." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States May 13, 2003: 6093-6095.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

[kroits´felt-yah´kōp]

a rare prion disease, associated with a number of different mutations of the prion protein gene. There are sporadic, infectious, and familial forms, the last inherited as an autosomal dominant trait, with onset usually in middle life, and a wide variety of clinical and pathological features. The most commonly seen are varying degrees of spongiform degeneration of neurons, neuronal loss, gliosis, and amyloid plaque formation, with rapidly progressive dementia. Death may come soon or after several years. Most cases are sporadic, although infectious cases may occur after surgical procedures or injection of hormone from infected pituitary glands. New variant Creutzfeld-Jakob disease is a variant seen almost exclusively in the United Kingdom, caused by the same agent that causes bovine spongiform encephalopathy ("mad cow disease") in cattle.

Creutz·feldt-Ja·kob disease (CJD),

(kroytz'fĕlt yah'kŏb), [MIM*123400]

a progressive neurologic disorder, one of the subacute spongiform encephalopathies caused by prions. Clinical features of CJD include a progressive cerebellar syndrome, including ataxia, abnormalities of gait and speech, and dementia. In most patients, these symptoms are followed by involuntary movements (myoclonus) and the appearance of a typical electroencephalogram pattern (burst suppression, consisting of intermittent sharp and slow wave complexes on a flat background). The average survival time is less than 1 year after onset of symptoms. Changes in the CSF are absent or nonspecific. Mild cortical atrophy and ventricular dilation may be grossly evident. On microscopic examination the distinctive finding is spongiform encephalopathy in gray matter throughout the brain and spinal cord. Severe neuronal loss and gliosis are also present and mild demyelination may occur. Ultrastructural changes include formation of intracytoplasmic vacuoles, which account for the spongy appearance. CJD occurs worldwide at a rate of about 1-2 cases per million population per year. Most cases are sporadic, but 10-12% are inherited. The peak incidence is between 55 and 65 years of age, and the disease is rare before age 30. Cases of iatrogenic CJD have been associated with corneal transplants, electrode implants, dura mater grafts, and administration of human growth hormone. CJD is caused by a prion protein (an abnormal isoform of amyloid protein) that serves as a nucleating factor, inducing abnormalities in other proteins. This protein is detectable by Western blot tesing early in the course of clinical disease. Other prion diseases include Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker (GSS) syndrome, fatal familial insomnia, and kuru in humans; scrapie in sheep and goats; and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, mad cow disease) in cattle. Similar encephalopathies and wasting syndromes are found in other species. All these diseases have been shown to be transmissible in laboratory animals.

An unusual number of cases of CJD were reported in young people in Great Britain during the 1990s. These patients displayed ataxia, memory impairment, dementia, and myoclonus. Besides the characteristic spongiform changes of CJD, autopsy specimens showed unusual amyloid plaques with dense eosinophilic centers extensively distributed throughout the cerebrum and cerebellum. These plaques, visible with routine staining methods, had not previously been noted in CJD, but did resemble plaques seen in kuru. In addition, these patients did not display the EEG changes characteristic of classical CJD. The development of this variant CJD in human beings has been traced to consumption of beef products contaminated with central nervous system tissues of cows infected with BSE. An epizootic of BSE killed more than 150,000 cattle in Britain between 1986 and 1996. The discovery late in 2003 of a single dairy cow infected with BSE in the western U.S. state of Washington prompted a revision of screening procedures and a tightening of restrictions on the use of meat products as human food. see also bovine spongiform encephalopathy

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

(kroits′fĕlt-yä′kôp)

n. Abbr. CJD

A fatal degenerative disease of the brain, caused by a prion and marked by progressive dementia and gradual loss of muscle control. Also called Jakob-Creutzfeldt disease.

A rare, invariably fatal, kuru-like infection which causes a form of presenile dementia primarily affecting middle-aged adults, caused by a prionPrognosis No treatment, no cure; CJD progresses rapidly to coma and death in 3 to 12 months

Inactivated by autoclaving for 1 hour at 132ºC and 20 psi, 5% hypochlorite, and 0.03% permanganate solutions. Instruments 0.1 N sodium hydroxide for 2 hours; 5% bleach–NaOCl for 4 hours; all surfaces should be scrubbed with iodine or phenol-based detergents

NOT inactivated by boiling, 10% formalin, 70% alcohol, UV light

Creutz·feldt-Ja·kob dis·ease

(CJD) (kroyts'felt-yah'kōp di-zēz')

A progressive neurologic disorder, one of the subacute spongiform encephalopathies caused by prions. Clinical features of CJD include a progressive cerebellar syndrome, including ataxia, abnormalities of gait and speech, and dementia. In most patients, these symptoms are followed by involuntary movements (myoclonus) and the appearance of a typical diagnostic electroencephalogram tracing (burst suppression, consisting of intermittent sharp and slow wave complexes on a flat background). The average survival is less than 1 year after onset of symptoms. See also: bovine spongiform encephalopathy

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD)

A rapidly-progressive transmissible disease of the nervous system with a very long incubation period. CJD mainly affects middle-aged and elderly people as a sporadic disease causing death within a few months of onset. It is a SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY, similar, or possibly identical, to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), KURU and scrapie in sheep and is associated with an abnormal protein called a prion. Up to 60 cases are estimated to occur each year in Britain. There is no effective treatment. A new variant of CJD with a shorter incubation period (vCJD) appeared in 1995 and by January 2003 a total of 121 cases of new variant CJD had been confirmed in Britain. There is clear evidence that this form is caused by the same strain of prion as BOVINE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY. In the period 1990 to 2002 the total for all types of CJD was 822. By late 2006 it was generally accepted that vCJD could be transmitted by blood transfusion. (Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt, 1885–1964, German psychiatrist; and Alfons Maria Jakob, 1884–1931, German neurologist).

Creutzfeldt,

Hans Gerhard, German neuropsychiatrist, 1885-1964.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease - a form of subacute spongiform encephalopathy caused by a transmissible agent that has not been completely defined. Synonym(s): Jakob-Creutzfeldt disease; mad cow disease; transmissible dementia

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